Note: Long time reader, first time diarist. Please let me know if format or rules haven't been followed.
I was just watching MSNBC and scrolled across the screen was (I'm assuming) a quote we'll hear from Giuliani tonight. It went something like, "Palin brings more executive experience to the ticket than the two Democrats combined."
Really? Is it executive experience that is the do all, end all when choosing a President and Vice President to run our country?
Who else do we know that had executive experience before being elevated to the highest office in the land? GEORGE BUSH!
I wanted to use "a Google" to find out how long he had been Governor and I happened across Governor George W Bush's acceptance speech from August 3, 2000.
WOW! Let's review a few of THOSE promises and goals...
This is a remarkable moment in the life of our nation. Never has the promise of prosperity been so vivid. But times of plenty, like times of crisis, are tests of American character.
Prosperity can be a tool in our hands -- used to build and better our country. Or it can be a drug in our system -- dulling our sense of urgency, of empathy, of duty.
Our opportunities are too great, our lives too short, to waste this moment.
So tonight we vow to our nation ...
We will seize this moment of American promise.
We will use these good times for great goals.
We will confront the hard issues -- threats to our national security, threats to our health and retirement security -- before the challenges of our time become crises for our children.
Threats to our national security? Bin Laden is still at large and we're in two wars. Threats to our health? The unisured has risen 8.6 million since 2000 to a total of 47 million uninsured in 2006 (last time polled). Retirement security...hasn't been touched. The challenges of our time is now very much the crises for our children and probably their children.
The last time taxes were this high as a percentage of our economy, there was a good reason ... We were fighting World War II.
Today, our high taxes fund a surplus. Some say that growing federal surplus means Washington has more money to spend.
But they've got it backwards.
The surplus is not the government's money. The surplus is the people's money.
Surplus? Our government ran with a surplus? Wow! Today the national debt is expanding by 1.4 billion a DAY. The debt owed by every man, woman and child in the United Statesis now $30,000.
The world needs America's strength and leadership, and America's armed forces need better equipment, better training, and better pay.
We will give our military the means to keep the peace, and we will give it one thing more ... a commander-in-chief who respects our men and women in uniform, and a commander-in-chief who earns their respect.
A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam.
When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming.
I will work to reduce nuclear weapons and nuclear tension in the world -- to turn these years of influence into decades of peace.
Apparently the lessons of Vietnam WEREN'T learned.
As governor, I've made difficult decisions, and stood by them under pressure. I've been where the buck stops -- in business and in government. I've been a chief executive who sets an agenda, sets big goals, and rallies people to believe and achieve them.
I am proud of this record, and I'm prepared for the work ahead.
If you give me your trust, I will honor it ... Grant me a mandate, and I will use it... Give me the opportunity to lead this nation, and I will lead ...
And we need a leader to seize the opportunities of this new century -- the new cures of medicine, the amazing technologies that will drive our economy and keep the peace.
Trust? Honor? Leader? PEACE? No words...
So tonight when you listen to a fellow Governor. The one with all that executive experience. The one that could be a heartbeat away from the PRESIDENT.
In the words of Governor Bush...
"They had their chance. They have not led. We will.
And now they come asking for another chance, another shot.
Our answer?
Not this time.
Not this year.
This is not a time for third chances, it is a time for new beginnings. The rising generations of this country have our own appointment with greatness."
GO OBAMA/BIDEN